11-month-old baby found a week after she disappeared in San Luis Potosí

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September 6, 2018

Mya Fernanada in the arms of a police officer after her rescue yesterday.

An 11-month-old baby who disappeared a week ago was found alive and well yesterday amid litter and construction garbage on a vacant lot in San Luis Potosí.

Federal Police officers on patrol heard an infant crying on a property next to the Río Verde-San Luis Potosí highway.

There they found Mya Fernanda Parra sitting on a blanket and wearing only a light dress despite the cold.

She was taken to the Hospital for Children and Women, given a clean bill of health and reunited with her parents.

Mya Fernanda disappeared on August 30 while her grandmother was taking her to a daycare center. The woman was found dead later the same day in El Zapote. She had been wounded in the thorax and the abdomen and had bled to death.

But there was no sign of the baby.

The San Luis Potosí Attorney General’s office continues to investigate the circumstances surrounding the woman’s death and the apparent kidnapping of the young girl.

Source: Milenio (sp), Código San Luis (sp)

One year later, earthquake recovery continues to be a long, slow process

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MND Staff

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September 6, 2018

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There is still earthquake rubble in the streets of Juchitán, Oaxaca.

Tomorrow will mark the first anniversary of the powerful 8.2-magnitude earthquake that struck off the coast of Chiapas, causing widespread damage and killing about 100 people.

But despite the passing of an entire year, thousands of people whose homes collapsed completely or were severely damaged are still waiting for reconstruction or repair work to be completed or, in some cases, to begin.

Some victims received federal aid money but found that the amount they were allocated was woefully inadequate to meet their reconstruction or repair needs, while others handed over the resources they received to unscrupulous construction companies, who took their money and ran without completing any or all of the work they committed to.

Most victims of last September’s first major earthquake are in the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, which together bore the brunt of the strong seismic activity at 11 minutes to midnight on September 7.

Romelia Pérez Cruz and Félix González Estrada, a couple both aged in their mid-90s and residents of the Cuauhtémoc ejido (community land) in Chiapas, are among the thousands of victims who continue to suffer from the ramifications of that fateful night.

Pérez and González lost their old adobe home but only received 25,000 pesos (US $1,300) with which to build a new one.

With the limited funds, the best the couple’s son Nevy González Pérez could do was build a six-by-six-meter makeshift shed, which is unsuitable for the region’s hot weather but which they have no choice but to call home.

Hundreds of other families living on the same ejido only received between 15,000 and 30,000 pesos (US $775 – US $1,550) in aid money, which wasn’t enough for them to buy all the construction materials they needed or pay the labor costs to allow them to finish their homes.

That’s the situation of Belisario López Gómez and his family, whose home sustained “total damage” in the quake.

However, instead of receiving the 120,000 pesos (US $6,200 at today’s exchange rate) they should have been entitled to, all they got was 15,000 pesos.

For the past year, López, his wife and two daughters had no choice but to live with his mother-in-law as he seeks out loans from alternative sources to complete the reconstruction work.

While he has been approved for a 50,000-peso bank loan, López told the newspaper El Universal that he still needs another 40,000 pesos to finish the family’s new home, which is currently without a roof and doors among other shortcomings.

In other parts of the state and Oaxaca — especially the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region — many more are in similar situations.

Oaxaca Governor Alejandro Murat said this week that 60% of quake-damaged homes have been repaired or rebuilt over the past 12 months, although federal authorities say the figure is lower.

He blamed municipal governments for the delays, charging that they had been slow to grant approval for a lot of the construction work.

Murat added that the state Attorney General’s office is investigating the cases in which construction companies are alleged to have defrauded earthquake victims who handed over their government financial aid to them.

Two hundred residents of Juchitán, the Isthmus region’s commercial hub, have complained to municipal authorities that they were duped by unscrupulous builders.

Murat also said that all the stored-value financial aid bank cards the state received were distributed to quake victims.

With regard to a report that 500 families didn’t receive the aid money they were entitled to, the governor said that “in many cases” people were unable to be found.

Murat also said that his government is working hard so that “gigantic steps” can be taken on the still outstanding reconstruction work, which includes the repair of damaged hospitals.

Almost 3,000 schools were also damaged in the state but four out of 10 are still awaiting repairs, statistics show.

According to information in President Enrique Peña Nieto’s sixth and final government report, Oaxaca received 7.36 billion pesos (US $376 million) in federal funding and aid following the earthquake — more than any other state affected by the two major September earthquakes — while Chiapas received 5.32 billion pesos (US $275 million), the third highest amount.

But despite the large injection of funds, the southern states which are two of the poorest in Mexico are suffering from the slowest rebuilding process in the country.

The federal government report said that both Oaxaca and Chiapas have completed less than 40% of the reconstruction and repair work required and distributed less than 40% of the federal money they have received.

Source: El Universal (sp), Milenio (sp)

Johnnie Walker acknowledges Wixáritari with special-edition whisky

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César Hernández

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September 6, 2018

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One of the limited-edition bottles and materials used to produce the design.

Johnnie Walker Blue Label scotch whisky has launched a special edition to pay tribute to the Wixáritari, or Huichol, people and their culture during September, the month of Mexico’s independence celebrations.

The 50 bottles with distinct motifs were decorated by Mexican artists from Menchaca Studio, which specializes in arts and handicrafts, using chaquiras, or small plastic beads, traditionally used by the Wixárika to create intricate designs.

“This edition shows the parallelism between Huichol design and the craft of whisky-making: unmatched talent and a remarkable history behind them. The best raw materials are required along with exemplary patience and passion, as well as excellence achieved through constant experimentation,” said beverage firm Diageo, owner of the Johnnie Walker brand.

The distiller explained that each of the 50 bottles has a unique design, with a special lot number etched on to it.

Menchaca Studio founding director César Menchaca explained that the limited-edition bottles drew inspiration from the Wixárika’s passion for art, life and culture, bringing to life mystical characteristics like peyote, a cactus with psychoactive alkaloids, particularly mescaline, deemed as a sacred fruit and bearer of wisdom; a blue deer representing the light of life; and snakes and scorpions, considered to be guardians of wisdom.

The special edition scotch will be sold exclusively by Loma Linda restaurants in Mexico City for 11,000 pesos a bottle (US $570), a portion of which will be donated to the Wixáritari people.

According to the market research firm Euromonitor International, Mexico’s whisky market was worth US $2.8 billion in 2016, and is expected to reach $3.7 billion by 2021.

Johnnie Walker dominates the domestic market with a 25% share, followed by Pernod Ricard’s Passport with 13.1% and Diageo’s Buchanan’s with 9.8%.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Senators will have to pay for their own haircuts

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César Hernández

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September 6, 2018

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The new era of restraint in the Senate will mean no more free haircuts.

The latest to feel the application of austerity measures are the Senate’s barbershop and beauty salon, whose elimination was approved by senators yesterday.

According to an information request filed by the newspaper El Universal in 2014, the Senate was spending 87,971 pesos per month (US $6,630 at the time) to pay the salaries of two barbers and three beauticians.

A visit by the newspaper yesterday found that the beauty salon has already shut down but the barbershop remains open with a single barber.

The Chamber of Deputies enjoys the same services but barbers and beauticians there have not been informed about plans to close them down.

One of the barbers rejected the notion that millions of pesos were spent on the salaries of the five employees. He claimed that they make their living on tips left by deputies and staff.

The president of the upper house’s political coordination council, Senator Ricardo Monreal Ávila, explained that the cutbacks will mean Congress is no longer “a house of privilege.”

He also said the Senate is going to set an example because the country “is economically and morally bankrupt.”

Source: El Universal (sp)

20 arrest warrants expected after Facebook video identifies lynch mob

By

MND Staff

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September 6, 2018

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Lynch mob also burned the vehicle in which the two victims had been traveling. — The mob also burned the vehicle in which the two victims had been traveling.

A Facebook Live video of the lynching of two men in Puebla last week has enabled authorities to identify many of the instigators and perpetrators of the crime, for whom as many as 20 arrest warrants are expected to be issued this week.

Angry citizens of San Vicente Boquerón, a town in the municipality of Acatlán de Osorio, beat and burned alive 43-year-old Alberto Flores Morales and his 21-year-old nephew Ricardo Flores Rodríguez on August 29 because they suspected the two men of being child snatchers, although authorities subsequently determined they were innocent.

Francisco Martínez, a man also known as “El Tecuanito,” started streaming to Facebook before the lynching occurred to urge more people to participate in the vigilante “justice.”

“People of Acatlán, come together, because things are getting delicate . . . The more people we are, the more justice we can serve,” he said in the live transmission.

The video and other evidence allowed authorities to identify taco vendor César Juárez and Enrique Guzmán Sánchez as the main instigators of the mob violence, and to determine that Nicodemo Aguilar was responsible for dousing the two victims with gasoline before they were set on fire.

In the video, Martínez also incites residents to go to the municipal police station, where an angry mob succeeded in taking the uncle and nephew from police by force.

The two victims, who had been drinking beer in public next to a local primary school, were taken into custody after they were accosted by residents who accused them of kidnapping three children.

Authorities believe that a total of 150 people participated in one way or another in the lynching of Alberto and Ricardo Flores. The newspaper Milenio reported today that it is probable that many of those involved are merchants in the local market.

To date, 29 suspects have been identified and two men have been arrested, one of whom died shortly after of cirrhosis.

But authorities are confident more suspects will soon be detained.

“There will be more arrests. In recent days, we searched nine addresses and this week more arrest warrants will be issued,” they said. “This week we expect to obtain 15 to 20 arrest warrants, although many [of the suspects] have already fled.”

State and ministerial police have been deployed to San Vicente Boquerón to bolster security and assist in investigations and arrests.

The murder of the two men was one of two lynchings of suspected child snatchers last week.

A man and a woman met the same nasty end in a town in Hidalgo the day after the Puebla men were killed.

Behind both lynchings was hysteria whipped up by fake messages circulating on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter and the messaging service WhatsApp, which supposedly served to alert citizens in several states that a wave of kidnappings was taking place.

News website López-Dóriga today published one of the fraudulent messages, written by Francisco Martínez, the same man who streamed the lynching on Facebook Live.

“Important statement: If you have kids in the school . . . go and get them . . . [There are] robberies and kidnappings [taking place] even to commercialize their organs . . . Let’s look after our children and the society where we live. Thank you, your friend, Tecuanito . . .”

Source: Milenio (sp), López -Dóriga (sp)

Tehuantepec’s two new clocks: one marks earthquake time

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MND Staff

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September 5, 2018

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Díaz and Tehuantepec's new clocks. istmo press

A memorial clock marking the exact time that last year’s powerful earthquake struck has been erected in a Oaxaca municipality that felt the full force of the shock.

Alongside the clock that is permanently set to 11:49pm is another showing the current time. Both are part of the same monument, which now stands in the town square of Santo Domingo Tehuantepec.

A time capsule containing information about the devastating natural disaster that occurred on September 7, as well as artifacts of Zapotec culture, will be buried beneath the clocks.

Luis Díaz Jiménez, a heritage official at the municipal council, told the newspaper Milenio that the idea behind the memorial was to pay tribute to the 82 people from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region who lost their lives in last September’s temblor.

The clock marking 11 minutes to midnight will also serve as a reminder of the need to be ready at all times for any kind of natural disaster that could strike, he added.

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Díaz explained that the time capsule will be covered with a concrete slab after burial and that instructions will be left for it to be opened in 100 years. Documents, photographs, traditional textiles, clothing, arts, crafts and jewelry are all slated to be included.

To mark the one-year anniversary of the earthquake this Friday, Díaz said, a silent procession will pass through the town’s streets and that a globo de cantoya, or sky lantern, will be released in memory of the quake victims.

Fortunately, most of the people in Santo Domingo who lost their homes in the earthquake have now managed to rebuild thanks to financial aid from the federal government.

However, it is estimated that more than half the people whose homes collapsed or were damaged in other parts of the Isthmus region have not yet rebuilt or repaired their dwellings.

Four out of every 10 quake-damaged schools in Oaxaca are also still waiting for repairs.

In Juchitán, the region’s commercial hub, 200 residents say that they were defrauded of the government aid they received by unscrupulous builders who took their money and ran.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Ex-mayor gets 247 years for multiple homicide in Michoacán

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MND Staff

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September 5, 2018

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A former mayor was sentenced yesterday to 247 years in prison for his role in the murder of 10 young men in Michoacán in July 2016, while four municipal police officers received 300-year terms for the same crime.

Juan Carlos Arreygue Núñez, ex-mayor of the Michoacán municipality of Álvaro Obregón, and the police who were under his charge at the time of the homicides were found guilty of the crime in July.

Investigators found that municipal police detained the 10 men on orders of Arreygue, who had personal differences with one of them.

They were shot dead on a property in Álvaro Obregón before being burned inside a pickup truck on another property in the neighboring municipality of Cuitzeo.

At the public hearing in the state capital of Morelia, the court also ordered the five guilty men to pay just under 3.7 million pesos (US $191,000) in reparations.

The Michoacán Attorney General’s office said in a statement that the sentences are subject to appeal but also stressed that “there will be no impunity.”

Arreygue, who was elected mayor under the banner of the Labor Party (PT), had been suspected of having ties to the Caballeros Templarios criminal organization before winning office.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Quite a bit late and several bodies short: new Congress begins session

By

César Hernández

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September 5, 2018

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Martí, left, and Muñoz, presidents of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies respectively.

Tardiness and absenteeism marked the first day of the 64th Legislature, the first leftist Congress in Mexico’s history.

It was also the first day on the job for the 628 lawmakers either elected on July 1 or named under proportional representation. But not all of them made it on time, and some never even made it in to work.

Scheduled to begin at 11:00am, the first day in session of the Chamber of Deputies officially started on Mexican time — 13 minutes late. And only 347 of the 500 deputies were in attendance.

The tardiness earned a rebuke from the president of the lower house, Deputy Porfirio Muñoz Ledo y Lazo de la Vega, who reprimanded the deputies in attendance “for not being able to start the assembly on time.”

One hour later, another 139 deputies had arrived for the first day of their three-year terms. That only left 14 unaccounted for.

They adjourned after three hours, at the end of which Muñoz Ledo asked his fellow legislators to be on time for the next scheduled session on Thursday.

Things were even worse in the upper house. Senate President Martí Batres Guadarrama rang the opening bell at 11:43: the first session of the senators’ six-year terms in office was 43 minutes late starting and short 43 of the 128 senators.

Earlier this week the two congressional leaders, both members of the Morena party, announced they would work together on legislation to implement the 12-point plan outlined last month by president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador and a new congressional legislation to address corruption and legislative immunity (known as the fuero).

Source: El Universal (sp)

Economy secretary says Mexico did not betray Canada in trade pact

By

MND Staff

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September 5, 2018

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Economy Secretary Guajardo: hoping for white smoke on Friday.

Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo has rejected any suggestion that Mexico betrayed Canada by reaching a bilateral trade deal with the United States after accusations by some Canadians it had done just that.

“Here nobody betrayed anyone,” Guajardo said in a radio interview yesterday with Grupo Fórmula.

The economy secretary, who has been Mexico’s chief negotiator in the drawn-out talks to ink an updated NAFTA deal, added that he has a “great personal relationship” with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and that he can “look her in the eyes” with “integrity and conviction” and tell her that there was no betrayal.

“I have no doubts about my moral authority to continue working with the Canadians, to move forward and to support the vision that . . . this agreement has to be trilateral,” Guajardo said.

In Canada there have been charges that Mexico “threw Canada under the bus” and betrayed its NAFTA partner by negotiating a two-way deal.

United States President Donald Trump announced August 27 that Mexico and the United States had reached a new trade pact that could exclude Canada. After four days of negotiations in Washington D.C. last week failed to yield a trilateral agreement, he notified U.S. Congress Friday that his administration intends to sign a new trade agreement in 90 days with Mexico and Canada, if the latter “is willing.”

The next day, he wrote in a Twitter post that “there is no political necessity to keep Canada in the new NAFTA deal” and that “if we don’t make a fair deal for the U.S. after decades of abuse, Canada will be out.”

Announcement of the bilateral arrangement, which Trump said would be called “the United States-Mexico trade agreement” because NAFTA has a “bad connotation” for the U.S., followed five weeks of separate negotiations between the two countries that resolved a range of contentious issues including rules of origin for the auto sector and the so-called sunset clause, which was scrapped and replaced with a six-year “review.”

Guajardo charged that holding separate talks with the United States was nothing out of the ordinary.

“The bilateralism of the negotiation has been a constant since day one,” he said, adding that a trilateral conversation would take place once all two-way issues have been solved.

Guajardo said he was hopeful that a deal between the United States and Canada — paving the way for a three-way accord — would be reached by the end of the week.

“I would hope there will be white smoke for this Friday,” he said, referring to the traditional announcement of the election of a new pope.

Guajardo added that after Friday the time frame became more complex. Mexican officials hope that a new deal can be reached before President Enrique Peña Nieto leaves office at the end of November.

Senior United States and Canadian officials resumed talks in Washington D.C. today but Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau indicated yesterday that Canada would not cave in to U.S. demands.

“As I’ve said, no NAFTA is better than a bad NAFTA deal for Canadians,” Trudeau told reporters.

Before entering meetings with United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer today, in which irksome issues such as access to Canada’s dairy market and the future of a dispute resolution system will be on the agenda, Freeland said “we are looking forward to constructive conversations.”

The Mexican government said in a statement Friday that it will closely monitor the talks and continue to push for a deal of which Canada is part.

Source: Expansión (sp), Politico (en)

Pregnant woman died of vaginal hemorrhage, but no sign of her baby

By

Tony Richards

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September 5, 2018

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Rodríguez's family would like to know what happened to her baby.

A search continues in Veracruz after a pregnant woman was found dead on Sunday — minus her unborn child.

Ángela Rodríguez Carvajal, 19, was seven months pregnant when she died of a vaginal hemorrhage after giving birth, authorities in the city of Veracruz said.

Her body was found on a vacant lot, but there was no sign of the baby.

A theory that Rodríguez died following an attempted abortion has been rejected by her family, who claim the young woman wanted the baby. Despite complications that arose during the pregnancy she always sought medical help, said a friend.

At one point she had to be hospitalized and told her family that if she died and the baby survived she wanted an aunt in Tijuana to care for the child. Before that she had suffered from kidney failure.

Meanwhile, Rodríguez’s family is hoping the baby can be found.

There are similarities in the case to two others that occurred in April. Also in Veracruz, a 23-year-old pregnant woman was murdered by another woman who extracted the unborn baby from the womb. The infant was later found and survived.

A little more than a week earlier, a 20-year-old Tamaulipas woman who was eight months pregnant disappeared in Tampico. Her body was found four days later in the home of a woman who allegedly used a knife to extract the fetus while the mother was still alive. Neither mother nor child survived the ordeal.

Source: XEU (sp)